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Saturday, 3 January 2015

Looking back at 2014

Hi,
New year, New blog! I'm starting afresh with this whole blogging thing, my last blog was a disaster in style and in content! I'm feeling very inspired by members of the Brighton Etsy Team to make something worth reading, I have ideas of things I'd like to share all the time but I never seem to find the time, this year however it WILL be different.

In case you don't know already my name is Claire Griffiths, I run 'Yellow Bear Wares' an Etsy shop that mainly contains jewellery made by re-appropriating vintage and pre-loved knitting needles. I've been running it for nearly two years now and so far it's going well, for me anyway! I'm afraid I had quite low expectations when I started but I thought I would give it a go. I've very been surprised by the successes I've had and 2014 was a great year for me. I've managed to cut down to working 3 days a week in my 'other' employment (more about that some other time) and I seem to be concentrating on Yellow Bear Wares for the other 4 days in each week! (I must admit, one of my aims this year is to stop OVER-working, I find it hard to settle at home when I can see there are things to make and do for the business).

Some of my Yellow Bear Wares highlights for 2014 were:

Being a part of an Open House in Brighton's Artist Open House Festival:

Collaborating with Laser kings 'Designosaur' on a yarn ball and needles inspired ring:

And those are just the highlights! I'm hoping 2015 will bring as many exciting opportunities my way and I'm going to work hard to try and make that happen.

Apologies for this being quite a long and image heavy post, it wasn't meant to be, I'm off now but I'd like to say thank you to all my customers, friends, supporters, family and all of the Brighton Etsy Team for making this year such a great one, seriously couldn't and wouldn't have done it without you!

As far back as I can remember I've had this 'itchy fingers/ itchy mind' sort of a feeling that spurs me to make things. I'm taking it seriously this time and trying to build a business around around it. I'll use this blog to capture my journey, share inspiration, introduce makers, create tutorials and generally bang on about all things makey.

In February 2016 I suffered from Postpartum Psychosis when having my daughter, I have since become someone who wants to share my story hoping that it will help others, so this blog will be both crafty and mental health based.